Page 220 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

with scepticism, “I’ll bet a bottle of wine that you can’t. And remember that a time
well after midnight will be necessary as the captain will want to see the southern
tip of Ceylon before turning in.”

The evening passed quietly and at midnight I took over from Stevie, as he had
now become, and he had plenty to say about Colombo, which was new territory
to him. I then spent some time discussing things with Martin Clowes, my cadet,
and prepared for a boring watch, the Bay of Bengal rarely being busy. It was a
perfect tropical night, with light breezes, a crystalline sky and the captain content
with the next leg of the voyage.
At 1 am we were disturbed. It was Flash, and he was accompanied by two
girls. As it was pitch-black, we could see all the navigational instruments but little
else, and our visitors could see nothing, there not even being an illuminating
moon. We introduced ourselves to Judith and Susan, Susan being peeled off by
Martin to the starboard side of the bridge. I was left with Judith on the port side.
They were the Shepherd sisters from Canada, and on board for a trip to and
from Hong Kong and back to Colombo, where their father was working for the
Canadian Government in the field of Hotel Management training under the aegis
of the Colombo Plan.
It is difficult to meet a new person in complete, or near complete, darkness.
But in this instance, this was no problem at all; I knew something of Vancouver,
she had a good knowledge of ships and the sea, having sailed from Vancouver
to the Far East with APL, and I found that her conversational skills exceeded
mine; she even worked in HR. Further, she was obviously the right age, being two
weeks younger than me, and possessed a good sense of humour – she even liked
my jocularity, not something I could always take for granted. It was also readily
apparent, even in a few minutes, that she was no milquetoast. (And her name was
easy enough to remember!)
We parted after an hour or so of most pleasing conversation; I looked forward
to seeing her next day. Martin enjoyed his watch as well, so he told me.

I hot-footed it down to the dining saloon the next morning and had another
important conversation with the head waiter. This most accommodating man
knew his stuff, for by dinner that evening we managed with the two ladies to
have a perfect table, even with Flash Harry there; he never proved a problem
actually, humour, if well-judged, never coming amiss, though I was beginning
to see him as rather immature. His companion was, to me, far more like
conventional banking material.

On the afternoon watch, another glorious day, Martin called me over to
the starboard wing of the bridge and pointed out a rare sight; before us, on the
foredeck, were two sun-bathing girls. One was a rather young and demure English

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